Passy, February 11th, 1779.
Sir,
As your Excellency reads English perfectly well, my first request is, that you would do me the favor to read this without a translation, after which I submit it to your Excellency to make what use of it you shall think proper.
I have hitherto avoided in my single capacity giving your Excellency any trouble by letter or conversation; but the present emergency demands that I should ask the favor to explain my sentiments, either by letter or in person. If you will permit a personal interview, I am persuaded I can make myself understood. If you prefer a correspondence, I will lay open my heart in writing, before your Excellency.
It is the address to the people in America under the name of Mr Silas Deane, that has occasioned this boldness in me. It is to me the most unexpected and unforeseen event that has happened. I hope your Excellency will not conclude from thence, that I despair of the Commonwealth. Far otherwise. I know that the body of the people in the United States stand immovable against Great Britain; and I hope that this address of Mr Deane’s (although it will occasion much trouble to individuals) will produce no final detriment to the common cause; but on the contrary, that it will occasion so thorough an investigation of several things as will correct many abuses.
It is my indispensable duty upon this occasion to inform your Excellency, without consulting either of my colleagues, that the honorable Arthur Lee was as long ago as 1770 appointed by the House of Representatives of the Massachusetts Bay, of which I had then the honor to be a member, their agent at the Court of London in case of the death or absence of Dr Franklin. This honorable testimony was given to Mr Lee by an assembly in which he had no natural interest, on account of his inflexible attachment to the American cause, and of the abilities of which he had given many proofs in its defence. From that time to the year 1774 he held a constant correspondence with several of those gentlemen, who stood foremost in the Massachusetts Bay against the innovations and illegal encroachments of Great Britain. This correspondence I had an opportunity of seeing, and I assure your Excellency from my own knowledge, that it breathed the most inflexible attachment, and the most ardent zeal in the cause of his country. From September 1774 to November 1777, I had the honor to be in Congress, and the opportunity to see his letters to Congress, to their committees, and to several of their individual members. Through the whole of both these periods, he communicated the most constant and certain intelligence, which was received from any individual within my knowledge, and since I have had the honor to be joined with him here, I have ever found in him the same fidelity and zeal; and have not a glimmering of suspicion, that he ever maintained an improper correspondence in England, or held any conference or negotiation with any body from thence, without communicating it to your Excellency and to his colleagues. I am confident, therefore, that every insinuation and suspicion against him of infidelity to the United States, or to their engagements with his Majesty, is false and groundless, and will assuredly be proved to be so.
The two honorable brothers of Mr Lee, who are members of Congress, I have long and intimately known; and of my own knowledge I can say, that no men have discovered more zeal in support of the sovereignty of the United States, and in promoting from the beginning a friendship and alliance with France, and there is nothing of which I am more firmly persuaded, than that every insinuation that is thrown out to the disadvantage of the two Mr Lees in Congress is groundless. It would be too tedious to enter at present into a more particular consideration of that address. I shall therefore conclude this letter, already too long, by assuring your Excellency, that I am, with the most entire consideration, your most, &c.
COUNT DE VERGENNES TO JOHN ADAMS.